Our father in the heavens, we, we, we give you glory. We are trying to take in this story. There's so much even in the words we just sang, that you are with us. God, we we're grateful. Many of us are grateful that you have made a way for us for some in these rooms. That is a distant thought, and I pray that you will help each of us to hear you as we open this story, as we talk about things that maybe we've forgotten, maybe we've never heard God. But today, today, would you remind us of just how outrageously could this story is for each of us. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Now, before y'all have a seat here at the sites, no, well Hank, before you have a seat, I I want you a hello Hub. Hello, grants Trail. Hello Fenton. Hello, mid Rivers. Hello here. Hello online. It's Christmas at The Crossing. So here's what we're gonna do. I want you to meet five people whose names you don't know. So you're just gonna say hello to them. You don't have to play along if you don't want to, but would you just go across, find some folks you don't know All? Alright, uh, glad you all are here. First of all, I'm sorry if that was awkward for those of you who are watching from home. Uh, hopefully you knew everyone in the room, uh, if not really awkward. Uh, but, but here we go. It's Christmas. And I just wanna say thank you to those staff and volunteers who on a short week flip these rooms to where it's already feeling like Christmas. So yes, so grateful. So grateful. And we got a whole bunch of people coming in this week to get us ready for this thing we call Artisan Market. Now at Advent, each year we do this in this season, we have this thing on Friday night where we will from six to nine o'clock here, all four sites will come together here. It's just gonna be so much fun. If you haven't done this before, you should come by. It's, uh, it's just so much fun. It's, uh, local vendors and artists and we get to support local businesses. We get to bless others. Uh, fun stuff for the kids. Food trucks smarts out in the fire pits. There's a family movie outside. It's not gonna be quite as cold. So bring your blankets. We have the heaters. It's just gonna be fun, live music. And it's just a great way to kick off the advent season. Advent, we're gonna come back to that in a second. You hear about us talking about Advent conspiracy? Ooh, that sounds really scary. What are we saying? We just a long time ago decided we were gonna conspire against some of the push and the pressure from the world, and we wanted to celebrate Advent the way God was calling us to, which is we're gonna worship him fully. We're gonna, we're gonna push back on getting ourselves into debt by, by, uh, overspending. We're going to give gifts that matter and we're gonna love the least of these. And so that's what we do. But it all starts with this idea of worshiping fully. You see, the reason advent is such a big deal around here. Well, I don't mean to get all pastor preachy on you this early, but it really does go back to what the angel said to those shepherds that were working the night shift, that Christmas night. Today in the town of David, a savior has been born to you. He is Messiah. Messiah. That's another way of saying Christ, which is another way of saying anointed one, which means he's the king. Are you with me? He's the king. And he's been born today. He's the Lord. There is so much loaded language there. That's why the angels come unglued. That's why the sky is filled with praising the glory of God. That's why we get so like cranked up about Christmas around here, the advent season. Now, what is advent? You hear that term? Well, advent is, it comes from a, a Latin word. It won't be your only Latin word today. You're welcome. But this Latin word is Adventist. Adventist. It means the appearance of it means the coming into view of, so it is the arrival of the king. That's what we celebrate around here. And like I just said, we're not the only ones. You see these angels couldn't help themselves. I want you for the rest of our time together to begin to understand some things about these angels that you, you probably knew, but maybe you didn't. I think there are some things in here that we need to remember, maybe be surprised by. So how about this, before I tell you why these angels were so undone, how about if you just kind of just show the person next to you how much you know? Okay. And tell them what you know about angels. So whether you're here, at each of the sites at home, just go ahead, start a conversation. Tell 'em what you know about angels. Go ahead. Have that conversation. Okay. All right. I'm sure there's a lot of wisdom flying around these rooms. Uh, just how about here? Anybody? Like what do you know about angels messenger? Satan was an angel. They're messengers. Okay, so that's actually what the Greek word means there. They are messengers. They bring, uh, they bring, uh, messages of, of, of hope. They bring messages of, Hey, this is what God's doing. Sometimes they bring answered prayers to people in the stories. Really strategic moments. We don't see it happening all over the place. Somebody said something here about, uh, what? Yeah, so, so Lucifer was and is an angel, but he was an angel in the heavens. Now we're getting someplace. Lucifer rebels against God takes a portion of those angels. By the way, let's say this, they're created beings. They're not gods. We don't worship them. They're not infinite, they're not eternal. God created them. But when there was a rebellion in the heavens, God banished some of them out of his presence, including their leader. Ooh, okay, what else do we know? They're not their what? Go ahead. So they're not, they don't necessarily look human. We see them appear that way in the, in the story a few times. But they are, can we just say they're other worldly? Like some of you are looking around right now going, do these people really believe this stuff we do? It's, it's, it's, these are planes of reality that we cannot see. But there is something happening here in let's say Ezekiel and Isaiah. These are two Old Testament writers. Uh, they talk about cherubim and seraphim. These are winged angels that surround the throne of God giving him glory. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who? Okay, so there's that. What else? Anybody got anything? Just a couple more things. Yes. Sometimes When scripture refers to angel of the Lord, that might be a pre Incarnate Christ. Yeah. Okay, now we're getting down into it. The angel of the Lord. Who is that? Some people think that could have been like an Old Testament appearance of Jesus. Okay, what else? What else you got? Anything? He just aligned with God's word. So they align with God's word. They do God's bidding. They do God's bidding. When God says go someplace, they go where they are supposed to go. I will give you a couple more real quickly. This is just a clear things up. You're not an angel when you die. You don't become an angel when you die. Your Aunt Matilda didn't become an angel when she died. She's not an angel sitting on your shoulder now that she's gone now, gang, I just want you to hear me. The scriptures are very clear. These are created beings, but we don't become them. Okay? And some of you're like, well, I gotta go clue Uncle Irv in then. 'cause he thinks that Matilda is, well, hang on a second. If Uncle Irv is fresh in his grief, don't you be coming in all hot with this stuff? Helping someone with their grief by dropping theological truth on them is not helpful. Okay? That's not the way this works. So, but there's that. They do, they there, there are wars in these planes. There are battles where they're pushing against these forces of darkness. Can I give you one more thing though? And, and nobody has really said it, by the way. They are magnificent beings. Every time we see 'em in the scriptures, they are like, people freak out. So whatever else is going on, these beings are impressive. They're impressive. They've been around for a while. Oh, here's one. I just thought of this. So, uh, like you see in Daniel a, a fellow named Gabriel. And then you get all the way to the story of Mary in the New Testament. And there's old Gabriel. So apparently they've been around for a while. But here's one you may not know. They are fascinated with the story of humanity. And they are specifically fascinated with one aspect of our story. Did you know that? You don't need to be obsessed with them. Certainly do not pray to them. They exist. They serve, they protect all of those things. They do the bidding of God. But they are fa in Peter second Peter in one of his letters, he puts it this way. He says, even angels long to look into these things. Now that's just a part of a sentence. So what is he saying there? What do they long to look into? You know what he's talking about? The gospel angels long to look into the story of how God saved us. And that verb look into means to bend down so you can get a closer look. Now you remember that? 'cause it's gonna come up later. Okay? So that's what they, and by the way, they have had a great, like a front row seat to the story. And they're scooting up every time. I don't think they know these things until God begins to reveal them to them, to them. And it's just a woo wow, look at what he's doing. But it has been a story, hasn't it? We talk about this all the time. We're not gonna go through it real quickly. I just wanna give you the, the history of forever in two minutes. So here we go. Um, what we know is that before, there was time, before there was a physical universe. The reason we do this, and we may come back to it in, uh, at Christmas, is I want people to know when you read scripture, it really does fit into a story. So before there was anything, God is, before there was time, space, a physical universe. These different planes of reality that we see and can't understand all of it before any of that God is. But there is a moment where God speaks and God creates, and that's what we call it. It is the creation event. And so all things are created by God. He creates this space for us to actually enjoy him, to enjoy each other, and to even care for this magnificent creation. But if you read the story in Genesis, at some point in the early chapters of Genesis, we rebelled against God. We rebelled against his goodness. We, we went our own way. And this is what opens the world up to, to hurt, to pain, to death. People are scarred. The, the, the, the planet is scarred. The Bible calls this sin. And God says, I cannot look away from that. He will not look away from it, but I'm not gonna let it have the last word in my story. So early on, those of you who have been around here a while, you understand where we're going here. There is a promise made. And that promise is there's gonna be one who's born of a woman. And somehow he's gonna be, he's gonna have enough power to, to break this, this, this curse to, to break the hold that sin has. He's gonna defeat evil. He's gonna crush the head of evil. He's gonna deal with this stuff. That's the promise. And all I can tell you is from here on out, that promise just keeps showing up in various forms throughout the Old Testament. I mean, you just see it again and again and again. You see it through a guy named Abraham. You see it through a fellow named Moses. Now, when Moses is, is rescuing the children of Israel, we're deep into the story. Now. God gives him instructions on how the people are to worship. And part of what he's doing here is he's teaching them about what is coming. Sin is a big deal to God and it must be dealt with. And we start to get just these little hints and clues of what is going to happen one day because there is a sacrifice and you almost just barely through images, symbols, and metaphors, you begin to get a sense of where God is leading the story. It's all heading towards something this promised one. The prophets are the ones who now come into the picture because the people of God were to like live this out. And they were to tell the rest of the world about God. But they didn't do that. They became like the rest of the world. Now they're worshiping these idols and these false gods. And the one true God is saying, you've gotta stop because you're on the edge of disaster. And if you keep doing this, I will have to deal with this. There will be a course correction, the likes of which you can't even imagine. God keeps saying this to his people. He's heartbroken by the way they are, are are doing this. And he sends, we call 'em prophets. And these prophets are warning the people and they're telling them, you gotta come back. But nobody listened. And sure enough that course correction happens. It is a judgment. It is the consequence of their rebellion. And the it comes in the form of enemies that crush them and take them into exile. Like their whole world falls apart literally. But even then, God keeps sending these prophets into the mess and saying, come back to him. Come back to him. He's not finished with you. He loves you. And throughout there are these promises and these hints and these clues of the one who is to come. And you just keep seeing the image gets stronger and clearer because there are these moments where the details are stunningly clear that someone is coming. But let's just stop here for a second. If you read these prophets like Isaiah, it's quite possible that you could go, which is it? 'cause like if you read Isaiah, there are places in there where he says, uh, there is one who's gonna make things right and we're gonna be healed by him. And you know how we're gonna be healed by, by his wounds, by his stripes, he's gonna be rejected. He's there. There's nobody is go, everybody's gonna turn their, their, their face away from him. That's a prophet, that's a prophecy. Same prophet says, oh yeah, when the king comes, he wins. Like there's, he's gonna take care of of evil. He's gonna take care of suffering and death. He's the king. I tell you, he's the king. Same guy, same prophet, which is it you, he the king who rules and reigns. You get to a place where, and, and the government will be on his shoulders and of his kingdom, there will be no end. And he shall reign forever and ever. Oh wait, everybody's gonna reject him. Well, which is it? One prophet says he's going to ride and he's gonna appear on clouds of glory. The whole world's gonna know he's the king. Another one says he's gonna ride into Jerusalem real humbly on a donkey. Which is it? Are these guys wrong? You see, these are questions to ask because they get us to the truth. Now, for centuries, some Jewish teachers would say, well, there must be two Messiahs. There's the one who's the king, and there's the one who's the suffering servant that that's how we solve it. They couldn't even imagine that one person, one life could somehow accomplish all of this. And of course, as we read this story, that's what we see. But you're going, Greg, I still don't see it the way you're describing. Well, here's the best way for us to understand this. Jesus did in fact come and fulfill so many of those prophecies that we talk about at Christmas. But if you really look at some of the predictions, they're pointing to his second advent. What? There's two advents. Remember, it means appearance, it means arrival of there are two advents in scripture. There is the birth of the king, and there's the return of the king. You tracking. You see around here, we believe in both of those. We trust that God kept his promise and he has made a way for us. And it is only through Jesus. And we celebrate that. But we clinging to the promise that the king is returning in all of his glory and he will have the last word. Amen. I'm just gonna tell y'all at Christmas, if you pay attention to some of the Christmas songs, those lyrics are full of both advents. Just listen for it. That's why the hope runs deep around here. We really do believe that God is going to do something which then gets us to who this Jesus really is. Go to the last page of your Bible. Yeah, I mean, the last page of your Bible, the last chapter of your Bible in Revelation chapter 23. It's at the end of the story, man. The king has triumphs. The king has won. It's woo, we're there. By the way, we studied this whole book of Revelation a couple of three years ago. That was an interesting ride. But you get to the end of this, well, it's really after every, it's really the beginning of everything new, but you'll have to come back for for Christmas to hear more about that. So, uh, what I will say is, at the end of all of this, Jesus says to a fellow named John who's capturing the whole vision. He says, I really am coming back. I really am. You need to tell people I'm coming back and I'm bringing re reward and blessing for those who have trusted in me. And then he says these words, I am the alpha and omega. You ever heard that before? I am the alpha and omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Now, what does that mean? Well, most of you have heard that alpha and Omega are the first and the last letters of the Greek alphabet. If you were a Jewish teacher, you would often try to sum up things and say, if, if you're talking about everything, then you're gonna talk about the a left and the top. This is the first letter and the last letter John's writing in Greek to people who read in Greek. And what he says here is, I want you to tell you, I wanna tell you who is before the beginning and who will be there after the end. I wanna tell you the one who sums the whole thing up. And the way he does that, he's, he says, Jesus is the alpha and omega. He is everything. Jesus is so much more than we thought Jesus is. Well, let's do this for a second. Do you, have you ever noticed that sometimes when we get to things that are really, really big, we don't know how to handle 'em. Like if you get to the edge of the Grand Canyon and you look at it, it is awe inspiring, but there's a thing in you that's going back up, back up, back up. Right? If you get up next to a really powerful waterfall, you are filled with awe. But there's a little bit of you that's like, oh, oh, oh. Sometimes if you look out in the nighttime sky and you see this, this, this blanket of stars, and you let your brain go there, it's like, how big is this universe? You could be filled with awe or you could be overwhelmed or watch this. If it gets too much, you just turn your brain off. I don't wanna think about that. What are we having for dinner? Let's see if we can figure out how well we do with big. Okay, so we're gonna do this a couple of different ways. First of all, would you just hang out with a couple of people here and help them? Here's how it works. We're going to give you a list on this list. It is not in the right order. I want you to put these in order from least to greatest. Again, a chance for you to show how much you know. Go ahead, talk to each other very quickly. All Right, let's see if we got this one. Am I all right, let's put 'em in the right order. That's the right order. Lease is on the top. Some of you think there's one that doesn't belong in there. No, that was a couple of weeks ago. A nibble really is a unit of measurement. So if I'm not mistaken, a bite is eight bits. A nibble technically is four bits. It's real. Okay? And then you get to a zeta bite. Now I just gotta make sure that I get this right. Do you know what a zeta byte is? A zeta byte is a lot of bites. It's a how about this a terabyte? You have a, there are phones now that have a could, you can have a terabyte worth of, of, of, of storage on a phone. Do you know what that could hold? I'm not talking about movies, I'm not talking about songs. But a terabyte could hold 1 million, just text half a million, excuse me, a half a million bucks. It's extraordinary. That's just a, that's just a a, a terabyte. So a zettabyte is a billion terabytes. It's a lot. Okay, so then when we get to, to, to a, a yaa bite. A yaa byte is 1 trillion terabytes Yara byte, by the way, I think named after Yoda. So I don't know why we don't call it a Yoda byte, but it's, I think it's pronounced a Yara byte. Uh, but here's the thing. So a yaah byte is a theoretical concept. We don't even have a yaa bite yet. A yaa bite is like one sextillion bite. It's, it's, it's, it would be like 100 billion libraries of Congress. Like if you had a data center with a yata bytes worth of information, you would have to build a data center, like a complete data center that was the size of Delaware and Rhode Island. It's more than we can imagine, right? Okay. So you remember sometimes we're like, oh, wow. And sometimes we're like, yeah, I don't wanna think about it. Okay, let's do one more here It is real quickly, uh, when it comes to, uh, least to greatest, go ahead, help each other with this. These are units of time. Which of these, and by the way, please note the spelling. Fortnite is not the game. Okay. All right. You got it. What's the first one? Smallest one is a nanosecond. All right, A shake. Anybody a shake in physics? No kidding is 10 nanoseconds. So if somebody says, I'll be with you in two shakes, you better hurry. Speaking of that, uh, does anybody know what just a moment is? Just a moment was a unit of measurement back in like the eight hundreds ad it had to do with how long it took for something to kind of cross over a part of the sundial. And there was a, a monk back then who wrote about it. And from describing it, people have determined just a moment is about 90 seconds. So again, when you say to someone or someone you love says to you, I'll be ready in just a moment, they're on the clock. People, Fortnite, we all know what a Fortnite is, right? What is, yeah. No, not T Swift Post Malone. Don't go there. Fortnite. What is a Fortnite? Two weeks. It's two weeks An eon. It's just a lot in a, in astronomical terms, it is 1 billion years. And then a super eon is like several billion years. And then when you start to read in some theoretical physics about these units of time, you get to other numbers and other things that are mentioned, and you start getting to like, uh, the non, the non millions and things like that. And there was a note I was reading in some physics stuff that said, you will get to a place where this is the last usable, uh, relevant number. Like, it just gets so big that it's like, yeah, we don't even need to go any further than that. So what, what's the point here? What did we learn? Are we good at this or not? Some of us love this kind of stuff. Some of us aren't quite sure what to do with it. I just want you to know that when we start talking about eternity, which we are, the Bible doesn't shy away from telling us that God is eternal. That's gonna help us understand why the angels were so undone that night. But let's take a break. I want you to hear a little bit about why we celebrate Christmas and advent the way we do. Uh, we're gonna hear a little more information here in just a second, and then I'm gonna come back and wrap this up. And you keep track, you make sure that I don't forget any of this. But in the course of understanding why these angels came undone that night, we're gonna cover everything from, uh, we're, well, we're gonna, we're gonna cover those friends that you just met. We're gonna, uh, talk about Raiders of the Lost Arc. We're going to look at one more Latin word that makes sense of everything, and we'll probably wrap things up with one of the most beautiful, difficult, uh, shocking metaphors, images that the prophet Isaiah used. So that's what we're gonna do. But first, watch this. I know we were talking about eternity there just a second ago. Can I just say that, uh, uh, I, I don't wanna shy away from this. When it comes to God, I get great comfort from the idea that God is eternal. You see, if God created all of this space, time, the physical universe, all of these things that we barely understand, it would only make logical sense that he's bigger than what he created. You with me. So if God is bigger than all of that, then that means God isn't contained or bound by it. And I take great comfort in worshiping a God that is more than I can imagine, and a God who isn't squeezed by the story. He isn't intimidated by the story. He isn't overwhelmed by the story. I take great comfort in that around here, we will oftentimes, uh, will stress the, the, the historical reality of Jesus. Like he really did walk the planet. I think it's really important to say those things at Christmas, but I want you to understand the other side of it. And that's the point that we really want to make because that's why the angels worshiped the way they did. You see, Jesus is eternal. Jesus was with God the Father. Before all of this happened. Jesus was there. In fact, the writer, John, in the first verses of his gospel, he puts it like this. He meaning Jesus was with God in the beginning. Through him, all things were made. He is an active part of the creative process. Without him, nothing was made. That has been made. You see, Jesus is God. That's really what's being said here. That's the important thing for us to understand. That's the outrageous thing. That's the outrageously good thing that was being celebrated. Let me put it to you this way. When Jesus, at the end of the story says like, I'm, I'm the first and the last, I'm, I'm it. That's the kind of thing God would say because God did say it again through this prophet Isaiah. Uh, I am he. I am the first. I am also the last. So right at the very end of the story, Jesus is saying, in case you missed it all the way through, I'm God. And He, we, we worship him. We celebrate this. Now, there's all sorts of questions there that some of you have, but we think the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and the evidence around the life, death and resurrection of Jesus points to someone who is unique in history, someone who is different and we worship him as God. This is where some people struggle. My Muslim friends will, will treat the, the, the story of Jesus reverently. Like Kenneth Clagg has written about Islam and Christianity, and, and I agree with him. He says, like Muslim will will tell you that the birth of Jesus flat out a miracle, miraculous. But the idea that God walked among us as one of us, no way my Jewish friends will say, there is one true God. And when you start saying that Jesus is also God, you're messing with that. What I would say is the evidence is so strong, we're going to clinging to there is one God hero, Israel, the Lord our God. The Lord is one around here. We teach about that Hebrew word for one and how it leaves room inside the one. What I will tell you is that in the first century, Jewish Orthodox Jewish scholars like Paul who are clinging to hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, are now confronted with the majesty and the evidence of who Jesus is. And they come to the conclusion that there must somehow be more to the one. In the one. It is a mystery, but there is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And that's who we worship around here. We talk about it in greater depth. We'd be happy to answer those questions. But I want you to know, this is who we worship this God. Words fail us, but we try, don't we? The scriptures try Elohim creator God. That word in the Hebrew l it is the word for power or might. And what you'll see in the Hebrew scriptures is it gets attached to a whole bunch of other words to help us understand who God is. He is El Sadik, the righteous God. He's Elam the everlasting God. He is Elam, the, the faithful God. He's el the holy God. He's El Elion the high God. I could go on. But there's one that we come back to really every advent season. And we've already, well, we've already sung it, haven't we? Okay. The prophet Isaiah chapter seven, verse 14 said, this will be a sign for you. Uh, the, the Lord himself will give you this sign. The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and we'll call him Emmanuel. Now, it's kind of backwards there. What it really has translated is he is the with us God. But Emmanuel is our way of saying, somehow, some way God is with us. Did Isaiah see all of this clearly? I don't think so. But he saw enough to know that there's something on the horizon that he could barely imagine. This is why the angels were so excited. The eternal God, the Son that they worshiped, has now somehow become a human being. He's now using lungs that have never been used before. He's coughing and crying. The one who spoke the universe into existence is going to have to learn how to form words. This is almost too much. And some people will go, well, how does that happen? Well, my technical answer is, I don't know, but I will tell you what the angels said. Now I'm just paraphrasing. But the angels are basically saying, one of 'em says to Mary, listen, I I, you know, I've seen God do a lot of things. So here's what I can tell you. Nothing's impossible with God. The question we ought to be asking today is why, why would he do this? Why would the eternal squeeze into like the human form? I don't, I don't have any other reason for you, but love. It's love. That's the simple reason. Love God came to us because he knew we couldn't reach him. God made a way to us because he knew on our own we would never get back to it. This is what the angels long to look into. You know how Peter said that they, they're curious about this idea of salvation. I think I can show you, and there are scholars who agree that there's a little bit of a hint of that all the way back deep into the story, and now we're to Raiders of the lost Ark. No, it was not an accurate movie. No, I am not telling you that an archeologist discovered the ark someplace and the Nazi stole it, and now it's in some warehouse outside of Washington dc None of that is true. Okay, we clear? But they did get something. They were hinting at something that is right. The arc is the arc of the covenant. The arc of the covenant was a part of the Hebrew worship way back in the time of Moses. God gives him specific instructions for this, this, this, this structure, this object that's gonna be in the tabernacle. And then the temple. God's teaching his people through images, metaphors, and symbols. It's a box, a wooden box. It's covered in gold. Inside that box are the, the, the, the stone tablets that God had given to Moses. These are the laws. It represents the law, the, the protection, the guidance that God would give his people. The top of it is a, is a, is a gold solid gold lid. It's called the mercy seat. Now, what does that mean? Does that mean that God just pulls up a chair and sits down? No, but it does mean that there are moments, particularly with Moses, where he would dwell in that tabernacle, his glory there. He would speak to Moses. Can you even imagine? And he would do it there. On the top of this is also this mercy seat is where the high priest, once a year at Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, he would bring the blood of sacrifice to animals. These are strange, mysterious things people. God is teaching. He's teaching about something that is coming. And it was sprinkled on the top of that mercy seat. It was a way to admit God, we have sinned. We need you. Somehow, there is a sacrifice that makes a difference, and it's all pointing to that day. You remember when the cross was just faintly in view? It was all pointing to that day when Jesus would offer a sacrifice, and that's it once and for all, but that's the mercy seat. Now, on top of the mercy seat, it was instructed that there would be these two cherubim. Those are the winged angels of God, two cherubim whose wings would like span out and cover and protect the mercy seat and the Ark of the Covenant. This is a rendition of it. Again, we don't have the Ark of the Covenant, but it gives you an idea of what it would look like. And if you could just see underneath those wings, what you see is that these cherubim, their faces are pointing downward as instructed, and they're gazing at the mercy seat. Yes, they are surrounding the place where God would be. Yes, this is a symbol of how they will worship the one true God. But there are many who cannot help. But notice what this looks like and what Peter is saying. And there are many, like an old English preacher named Charles Spurgeon, who will say, is it possible that what's going on here is a hint that these angels long to look to the day and the moment when the blood of the one true God will be spilled and humanity will be saved? Come on. That's what's going on here. These moments, these predictions, these prophecies all start to stack together. And you're like, well, I don't know what to do with that. Isaiah is writing to people who are 700 years before Jesus, and they're in the middle of an exile and they don't know what to do with their promises. You see, he's telling them that God's not finished with them. He's telling them that God will make a way for them. In some of these later chapters of Isaiah, he's saying, listen, you get to come back home. God's gonna restore you. And the good news of Messiah, who is coming, it's gonna be for the whole world, just watch. It's going to get out to the edges of the earth. In some of these places, like in Psalm or in Isaiah 49, he says things like, like, like, it's, it's all gonna be restored. You get places where there's, there's a new creation. God has the last word. No more sin, no more death, no more suffering. And the people who are in exiled, the people who are in it right, then say, that's great. I don't know what to do with that. What about right now? Anyone? Anyone? When you walk through the Christmas story, anyone, will you now go through December? Is there anyone here who would just say, that's me? I wanna know about what Now remember the song we sang just a minute ago? God, I need you now, man. You can talk about all of these great things that are gonna happen in the future. And I am so grateful for what God did for me in the past, but God, what about now? The people of Israel are saying, have you forgotten me? Have you forgotten? Do you still love us? And watch how God responds to them. He doesn't. He doesn't. Um, he's not offended. He doesn't shame them. He doesn't say, how dare you. He doesn't say, tough darts, farmer, you made this mess. You're on your own. What God says is, no matter what you're facing, no matter what you're going through, I have never stopped loving you. I have never stopped thinking about you. He says, I will not forget this is it. He like, there's some really interesting metaphors there in that chapter. But then he says this, I will not forget. I won't forget you Turn to the people next to you real quickly as we wrap this up and tell 'em the name of the five people that you mentioned. Go ahead, just tell 'em real quickly. Do you have those names? You still have them? Go ahead. Prove that you got the names. All right. Okay. It shouldn't have taken that long. You got it? It, it's so much fun. I'm sure this is happening at each of the rooms, but I'm looking and I'm watching, and some of you are like, ha, I have no idea what you about. Some of you turned around and said, I know, but just tell me one more time, what's your name? Some of you're thinking, well, wait a minute. If there was a test, I would've written their names down. I'd have put 'em in my phone. Or here's an age old way to do it here, Emily. Yeah. And there's, Okay, and Diego. Okay, I got 'em. I got these names. I got 'em, I got 'em right here. I won't forget 'em. I got 'em. You know, this practice has been going on in one form or another for years, right? I'm not talking about like writing the answers on the test before you go into the classroom. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about in some places in the ancient world, there were practices that, uh, that, that, that will make sense in just a second. You see what God says is I will not forget and then look at the rest of it. See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. Now, not always, but in the ancient world, there were times when, uh, in some cases there were times when someone was worshiping a false God. And what they would do is they would engrave the name of that God. They would tattoo the name of that God onto their body somewhere, okay? There were even places in, in, you know, in the horror that is slavery. There were places that that masters would tattoo their names onto their slaves. That's not what's happening here. I want you to understand, the script has completely flipped. Nobody has ever seen anything like this. So wait a minute. You're saying that somehow a, a, a, the the one true God is gonna, he's gonna like somehow tattoo, hi, my name on his palm. The, the, the, there's never been like a, a master who would put the names of a servant. There's never been a king that would put the names of a subject on his. What? What are you talking about? This is how much God loves you, right? So God's not gonna, it's even more than that. The verb there in the Hebrew for engrave, it can mean tattoo, it can mean, right? But if you look at the verb itself, it can also mean engrave as in something that happens with a chisel or a spike and a hammer. And there are some scholars that read this and go, there is no way. That's what, that's what God is saying through this prophet, I won't forget you. I will not forget you. I have your names engraved on my palms. Is that the promise of Isaiah? Is that what God is saying? Could that possibly be one of the prophecies that takes us to white? Christmas is such a wonder. You see, if you keep reading the next verse, the next verse says, I see your walls. They are ever before me. Do you know what he means? There? I see the ruins of your life. I see the mess that you've made of things, but I haven't forgotten you. I haven't stopped loving you. I will not forget you. I have carved your names on my palms. The only way Emmanuel can be our savior, the only way the eternal king can rescue us is when he becomes a human who has palms, who has hands. And so a little baby is born a baby like no other. And on that Christmas night, the angels are looking again at how God is going to rescue people. That's why they, that's why they were undone. That's why the skies were filled. Are you kidding me? God, you love them that much. That the eternal son will pour his blood out, that the spirit will be grieved, that the Father will be heartbroken as the story of Jesus plays out. This is what you meant. Glory to God in the highest. I mean, that's what, that's why the heavens were filled. So my question to us here at the end is this, if the angels can worship, we could, right? Maybe. What do you think? Oh, Tim, I'd like for us to kick off Advent with a new song. And if it's possible, I'd like for you to be the choir director for a second and just teach us the chorus of that song. That sounds fun. Okay? Yeah. All right. So just, just help 'em with this. Yeah, so, So I'm gonna sing this once, and you listen really carefully. Those of you who are at the sites, listen. 'cause you're gonna sing it with me here in a second. You ready? Goes like this, Gloria. We are people sing wonderful story. Glory and glory, that all the people sing glory. All the glory is Amen. It's a little different there at the end. You got it? All right. Sing it with me. Here we go. Glory. We are people. What wonderful story that all the people glory. All the glory is your ever. Amen. Alright. Alright. This sound good? I think they got it. I think they got it. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so here's the thing. Remember I told you there'd be one more Latin word? You just sang it. Gloria Gloria in Chelsea, glory, glory to God. Can I leave you with this? These angels love to worship God. It's what they do. Glory to God in the highest. You wanna know one thing and one place that you get to sing from that they don't. You see, these angels know all about God's grace. They know all about his goodness. They have been a witness to things that you and I can't even imagine, this side of eternity. But these angels never rebelled against God. Those angels are gone. These angels have obeyed and worshiped and been with him throughout. You know what that means? They don't know the heartache of rebellion, they don't know the ache of separation from God. And they don't know the relief and the welcome of grace. But we do, like you all know, firsthand, the grace of God. Like of all the people, we should be the ones who could sing. Gloria. Amen. Yes. So here's what I want us to do. If we could, I want everybody to stand. We're gonna, we're gonna officially start this advent season. If the angels can worship God on high, I think we could join them this day. Don't you think? We're so glad that you joined us. Come back on Friday. Come back on next weekend. We're gonna keep worshiping our God. This is the verse. You'll be able to sing it. Join us. Come Lord.